Yogini Zain Saraswati Jamal shares life's lessons

She's been through a lot in her 34 years, and she is using her experiences to help others better themselves

“When you start to make healthier choices and eliminate the not-so-good ones, you start to feel better and it snowballs from there,” says Zain Saraswati Jamal, who has battled with anorexia.

Photograph by: Courtesy of Zain Saraswati Jamal
, Postmedia News

Zain Saraswati Jamal has packed a lot of living into her 34 years.

She’s studied business, sold high-end luxury goods, modelled, worked and travelled abroad, became a sports nutritionist, was a performance artist, counselled athletes and has been practising yoga since the age of 9. Oh, and she has been teaching it for years.

She describes herself as a “yogini, coach, whole food alchemist and spiritual gangster.”

And did I mention she battled eating disorders — from both sides of that coin — for years?

But for years, she says she didn’t know what her true calling was. She’s found it, though.

Jamal says it’s perfectly clear to her that she is meant to help people overcome their food addictions, to nourish themselves, and to be happy and whole.

“I’m actually grateful that I had an eating disorder, as crazy as that may sound,” the outgoing and warm Vancouver-based entrepreneur told me. “It’s because I have lived both sides, I know I can help people, and it’s without a doubt what I am meant to do.”

Jamal certainly stands out in a crowd.

I met her while she was in line waiting to meet Oprah when she was in town last April.

The woman radiates health and wellness.

But that wasn’t always the way.

For years, she says she was “seriously malnourished” and suffered from binge eating and anorexia.

“The sad thing is that I was working in an environment that supported that, the thinner I was, the better people told me I looked, even though I was clearly very sick and clearly undernourished.”

Living in London at the time, Jamal, with the support of her family, came back to Canada and entered a treatment facility to help her overcome the disease.

“It’s not an easy process,” she explained to me in a recent conversation. “It takes work, it is kind of a two step forward, three step back kind of thing.”

Jamal says the most interesting thing about her journey is that she was always searching for the answer on the outside.

“The thing is,” she says with utmost certainty, “is the answers are in all of us, it’s not in the next diet, or in a magazine. The solution lies within.”

Jamal says you have to learn to trust your instincts. “It means taking responsibility for your actions, for yourself, for your life.”

And it really is, she believes, a one-day, one-meal, one-choice-at-a-time process.

“Every healthy choice counts.”

And the gift is making a healthy lifestyle the goal.

“It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and when you start to make healthier choices and eliminate the not-so-good ones, you start to feel better and it snowballs from there.”

One of the best ways of going about it is to learn mindfulness and to meditate.

“We have to show up for ourselves, to know ourselves, the answers are always, always inside.”

In stillness, the answers will show up and true transformation will begin.

Jamal believes whether one doesn’t eat enough, or one overeats, they are the same. “An eating disorder is proof that things are out of balance.”

In recent years, she’s become a coach in Ayurveda with a focus on holistic nutrition, and she coaches clients around the world, thanks to platforms like Skype.

“Accountability is key” she says. That’s why she is in weekly contact with her clients working on meal plans, exercise encouragement and often just a shoulder for her clients to lean on.

“You feel very alone when you have an eating disorder, so it helps to share with someone who has been down that path.”

And not all of her clients have eating disorders. She coaches anyone who wants to achieve wellness. “My purpose is to serve as a guide, to help them achieve balance and optimum health.”

Jamal works with her clients on three levels. Mind, body and spirit. “It’s not just about one, but rather all three combined that make us healthier beings.”

And what works for one, does not necessarily work for another. “The way I find balance may not be the way for you, I like to give my clients tools so they can find their own definition of balance, I’m not there to preach mine.”

A “spiritual vegan” (she never eats meat!) Jamal is making a name for herself with her organic line of vegan desserts and is currently working on a deal that would see a few of them in stores.

Jamal says too often when people are trying to shed some weight, it’s all about deprivation and that shouldn’t be the case.

“I love food,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine my life without, say, a lovely dessert, and too often we think we can’t or shouldn’t have certain foods, when, in fact, it is possible.”

Jamal says she works hard developing healthy, clean recipes that are nutritious and delicious, and she loves to play around with food that too often people feel are taboo. “I make a killer brownie” she laughed. “And completely vegan and over the top healthy.”

Her life’s mission, she feels, is to serve others.

“I’ve worked in a consumption driven environment and felt empty” she said. “I just want to help people overcome difficulties, to feel healthy and alive, and to enjoy life to the fullest.”

Her website, zainsaraswatijamal.com gives us some of her favourite recipes, tips on wellness and exercise. Her blog, Eve Post Apple, tells us more of her story.

She’s one busy woman all right. It’ll be interesting to see what she packs in over the next 34 years.

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